confusion is found in Lithuania.[1] The misuse of the letter and its sound which is occasionally met with may therefore have had its origin in settlers from the Baltic, and we have seen that there are Wendish place-names not far from Oxford. It is worth noting also, in reference to the aspirate h, that an old Frisian Chronicle of the thirteenth century has Engist for Hengist.[2] From what has been said, it will perhaps be admitted that the Anglo-Saxon aspirated h may not always have been sounded by all the Old English people, and that the h sound was used as an equivalent of that represented by the old ch.
We may now go back to consider what evidence the place-names in the Upper Thames valley afford of a possible settlement of Chaucians or Hocings. On the west of Oxford, near Farringdon, we find Coxwell, the Cocheswelle of Domesday Book. South of Witney, in Standlake parish, is Cokethorpe, the Cocthrop of the Hundred Rolls, and east of Oxford, near Watlington, is Cuxham, the Anglo-Saxon Cuceshámm.[3] Coccetley Croft is also an old name near Abingdon.[4] Hóchylle[5] is a name in the boundaries of Sandford-on-Thames, mentioned in Saxon time, and Hócsléw is another mentioned in the boundaries of Witney.[6] Hocan-edisce was the name of a place in Berkshire on the Thames in the tenth century.[7] Hockeswell is mentioned in the Hundred Rolls,[8] and is apparently the same place as that now called Hawkswell, in the northern suburbs of Oxford. Hokemere is an ancient name at Cowley,[9] near Oxford, the same, apparently, as the Anglo-Saxon name Ockemere,[10] which occurs in an early charter relating to St. Frideswide’s Abbey. Hochenartone,
- ↑ Morfill, W. R., loc. cit., p. 85.
- ↑ Bosworth, J., ‘Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages,’ p. 52, quoting Spiegel.
- ↑ Codex Dipl., Nos. 311, 691.
- ↑ Hundred Rolls, ii. 19.
- ↑ Codex Dipl., Nos. 793 and 800.
- ↑ Ibid., No. 775.
- ↑ Cart. Sax., iii. 560.
- ↑ Hundred Rolls, ii. 35.
- ↑ Wood, A., ‘Antiquities of Oxford,’ edited by Clark, ii. 507.
- ↑ Cartulary of St. Frideswide, edited by Wigram, i., p. 4.
